Palermo Graffiti Shared Walking Tour

Palermo is where Buenos Aires’ street art scene is most visible: full building walls painted with the permission of their owners, alongside the paste-ups and stencils that go up overnight. This walk covers both, with the stories behind the pieces and the artists who made them.

The route takes in work by two of the city’s best-known muralists. Martín Ron paints in a photorealistic style at a scale that turns entire building facades into a single image — his best-known Palermo piece is a girl taking a selfie, several storeys tall. Alfredo Segatori works in a busier, more graphic style, and one of his Palermo murals takes on the city’s waste and recycling habits directly.

Along the way, the guide covers how Buenos Aires’ relationship with street art changed from illegal tagging to a scene building owners now commission on purpose, and how a paste-up differs from a mural in both technique and permanence.

1. Step 1

   Meeting Point – Recoleta Cemetery Gate

   • Meet your guide at the cemetery gate on Junín 1760, where the walk begins with an introduction to how street art developed in Buenos Aires before heading into Palermo.
2. Step 2

   Street Art in Argentina

   • An overview of the local scene: how graffiti moved from illegal tagging to walls that building owners now commission, and what sets Buenos Aires’ street art apart from other cities on the continent.
3. Step 3

   Paste-ups & Wheatpaste Art

   • A look at the paste-up and wheatpaste pieces that appear overnight on Palermo’s walls and doorways — a different technique and a different pace from a commissioned mural.
4. Step 4

   Martín Ron’s Selfie Girl

   • Stop at one of Palermo’s largest murals: a girl taking a selfie, painted several storeys tall in Martín Ron’s photorealistic style. The guide covers how a mural at this scale gets painted and how Ron built his reputation with it.
5. Step 5

   Alfredo Segatori’s Waste Mural

   • A mural by Alfredo Segatori that takes on the city’s relationship with waste and recycling directly, in his busier, more graphic style — a contrast with the photorealism a few blocks earlier.